Weekend in the Smokies!

Last weekend (1.18-1.21), Galen and I took a great trip to visit the Wear's Valley/Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg areas of TN. We had such a great time! We rented a very nice cabin @ The Preserve in Wear's Valley; somewhat of a distance from the hub-bub of the city and all...Wear's Valley is considered to be somewhat like Townsend, TN, "the quiet side of the Smokies." It was MLK Jr. weekend and lots of people had taken advantage of a 3-day weekend. Despite threat of 4" of snow and wintery mix, we ventured on over the mountains Friday after work. Disappointingly, we ended up with no snow but we did get to enjoy the bite of wintery temperatures, so at least it "felt" seasonal. While we were there we explored downtown Sevierville, took in a movie there on Friday night; on Saturday we busted Gatlinburg wide open, visiting the Ripley's aquarium, the Pigeon Forge "mall", had a great dinner at a cozy (American) Italian restaurant on the parkway, toured the Ripley's Museum, a few typical novelty stores, and finished the night off like the 2 young kids that we are...at the ARCADE! Haha! It was so fun to come out on the street and see no traffic filling the road as is most often the case...a vacant road is rare indeed in Gatlinburg...but we shut it down! They leave the Christmas lights up through the end of February, so I got some really great pics of the street lights...especially from the bridge. Sunday we awoke to a power outage...so what were we to do...but head for Bob Evans for a warm breakfast and hope for the best. From there we shopped around the Christmas shoppe next door and then toured the Floyd Garrett Classic Car Museum in Sevierville! We had such a great time and took some really fun (and beautiful) photos. Hope you enjoy them!

Until next time...

First Blog Day!

Hello everyone! Here we are in the middle of January 2008, and I thought it would be a nice time to start a 'blog' of my own. A little place on the web where, you, my friends and family, can stop by and see what I may have been up to lately or perhaps what is on my mind. Photos will also be a staple of the site and hopefully even some video quite soon!

Tomorrow I will have been with the NC Cooperative Extension in Cherokee County, NC for 3 months. It has been an exciting and interesting window on the post-graduate "world of work." Each day brings new and diverse opportunities for me to be a part of Extension's mission, which is to provide the resources and research-based information to the general population of North Carolinians through non-formal educational opportunities.

One of my greatest phobias about work prior to beginning with Extension was the fear of being stuck in an office and having a monotonous schedule. There are days of desk work with Extension, but so far I have found that I will get to enjoy the spice of variety in my time here. One day I'm helping with nutrition and fitness programs at the Senior Center and the next I'm in the great outdoors getting to learn about measuring the "fall" of a stream to determine its fitness for a hydro-electric power system in rural Graham county, or even doing a Gingerbread workshop with youth in the Texana community!

I'm really enjoying the marketing component of my job, too. I work on updating our website, crafting informational publications, display boards, and in the near future, there is talk of perhaps some radio psa's. God has blessed me in so many ways, many of which I probably haven't taken notice of just yet. I am thankful for the opportunity to return to the place and people that raised me, taught me, inspired me, and loved me all along the way...and getting to make a difference in their lives and in our community is a reward in itself.